Friday, 17 March 2017

I love using Pinterest - whether it's to help during the planning process of a book or simply to collect cute animals pictures - so I had to make a board for my latest release, The Little Teashop of Broken Hearts.

The board is full of cakes, biscuits and other sweet treats, just like Maddie's teashop! You can follow the board here or see all my boards here

About The Book

From fairy cakes to first dates!

Maddie Lamington’s dreams are crumbling around her. If she doesn’t come up with a plan to save her little teashop on Sweet Street soon, it might be too late…

So when she sees how the perfect apple crumble brings together her lonely father and faithful customer Birdie, inspiration strikes: she’ll set up a dating night involving all her sweetest bakes.

Luckily, seriously gorgeous Caleb is on hand to help sprinkle a little magic – and a lot of sugar! Could one night of scrumptious first dates fix Maddie’s heartbreak and save her beloved teashop, too?

Friday, 10 March 2017

I love using Spotify to create playlists while writing my books. For The Little Teashop of Broken Hearts, I wanted a playlist of happy and uplifting songs, songs that made me smile and sing along. I imagined they would be playing on the radio in the background as Maddie worked, reflecting the fun atmosphere she had created in her teashop.

I've listened to this playlist millions* of times - while I was working on the book and afterwards, when I just wanted to listen to some fun songs - and I thought I'd share the playlist with you. You can listen to the playlist here on the blog, or click here to listen on Spotify, where you can also save the playlist to listen to whenever you want!

So grab a cup of tea, a bit of cake, and imagine you're in Sweet Street Teashop!

*Very slight exaggeration

Which songs would you add to a happy and uplifting playlist?

About The Book

From fairy cakes to first dates!

Maddie Lamington’s dreams are crumbling around her. If she doesn’t come up with a plan to save her little teashop on Sweet Street soon, it might be too late…

So when she sees how the perfect apple crumble brings together her lonely father and faithful customer Birdie, inspiration strikes: she’ll set up a dating night involving all her sweetest bakes.

Luckily, seriously gorgeous Caleb is on hand to help sprinkle a little magic – and a lot of sugar! Could one night of scrumptious first dates fix Maddie’s heartbreak and save her beloved teashop, too?

Thursday, 2 March 2017

Happy World Book Day! If you've got little ones, they've probably gone to school dressed as a book character - and if you're a teacher, you may be dressed as one yourself!

I love how the teachers at my youngest daughter's school join in the fun and take part too. This morning, I've seen teachers dressed up as Horrid Henry, Gangsta Granny and Demon Dentist (to name a few) and the school has been gearing itself up for WBD all week by trading teachers for their stories at the end of the day. Isobel has enjoyed the surprise of seeing who is going to read the next instalment of The Witches to them each afternoon.

The children are going to be taking part in fun activities throughout the day and they're also able to take in books to swap with their friends. Isobel has taken in a couple of books to swap - I wonder what she'll come home with this afternoon!

Isobel has chosen to dress up as Penny the Pony Fairy from the Rainbow Magic series this year, which was a relief as she'd left it until the last minute to decide and the Penny 'costume' was easy to put together - jeggings, plaid shirt, boots, fairy wings - we had it all already! All I had to do was put little pigtails in her hair. Easy. Peasy.

I have put more effort in over the years, though. Last year, Isobel wanted to go as the cat from The Owl and The Pussycat (again, we already had a cat costume in the dressing up box), so I made her a little owl to take with her, which she loved.

The year before was super easy, with no creativity needed as she wanted to be Lola from the Charlie and Lola series, and we already had bright clothes and a Sizzle toy.

But her nursery costume took the most effort. Each class had a book theme that year and nursery's was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. So I made Isobel some antennae and dressed her in green (easy) and made her a 'hungry caterpillar' belt of all the food he eats (not so easy).

I was so proud of the belt. Unfortunately, it didn't make it home in once piece - most of the 'food' had dropped off by home time! I also made a caterpillar sticker, which did survive the day.

I've loved looking back on Isobel's World Book day photos, not only because I can see how much she's grown over the past few years, but because it's a reminder of how much fun books and reading can be for children (and grown ups!). It's why I'm so grateful for the schools going to the extra effort to bring reading alive.

As it's World Book Day, I thought I'd share my current read, which is actually a re-read. I've read Jane Green's Mr Maybe numerous times over the years and it's like catching up with an old friend. I love the writing - the warmth, the ease, the fun - and I remember reading Jane's early books for the first time and thinking these are the kinds of books I want to write - and I still think that every time I return to them!